What spices? I admit I'm not an expert, but according to Google pepperoni is made with black pepper, paprika, mustard seed, garlic, fennel seed, cayenne pepper, and crushed red pepper. Every one of those can be grown in the US fairly easily.

I get that this particular place he went to wasn't in the US, but a greenhouse, which they must be situated for should suffice and they don't need commercial quantities.

Plus, they've got communities in the US and elsewhere too. Surely...?

No offense, but I'm not buying that as the reason. I'm not saying they don't have a good reason or that I think they should be completely self suffient to be "legit" or whatever, I'm just saying that's nowhere near insurmountable or even difficult since they're already growing so much of their own food. Plus, the peppers would be good for the chickens, so there's reason enough to grow some of these plants outside making pepperoni.